Austin Elliott Interpretive Essay After reading the short story "Poachers" one could question the morals

behind it, and

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wonder

the rhetorical effectiveness that it brings to deliver its message. As I rea it I began t

how these events used could contribute to everyday society, then it hit me it's not the how the characters in the story are portrayed, but it is the events that are used to bring rhetoric alive.

In the beginning of the story I noticed that we are shown three boys that are in essence left alone to fend for their selves. Throughout the story we are shown the lack of sustaining

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morals that the boys have, of how they participate in illegal activities and do not possess those

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that normal people share. These three boys tell the story of the life that they have lived, through their actions along with their personalities. As we look into these characters we can

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begin to see the rhetorical approach that the author uses to deliver the story. The activities of the story are ones that we could not fathom happening in the society around us. Using this, the author is able to take us as the reader to a different world, for say, while these type situations occur around us on a daily basis. While reading this piece the audience is supposed to be left in disbelief of how the boy show no mercy to kill the game warder or electrify fish, but it shows a way of life that they have always lived. Even though this is the only life that they know, does it make their situation acceptable? I believe that this is the underlying goal that the author wishes to present. If the audience truly takes the time to evaluate this information then they can begin to realize that in our society we take things such as this to be acceptable. For instance do we allow a murder to go to jail for the rest of their life, or to be punished by death if they can prove that they are mentally unstable? Of course we don't, that is why so many crooked people get .l... \".J . L gl 1 ,) \lS'~ ~ tY)\Aftl.-e-ftv ov r.~e\V1(Ut~ ht\6t~1-{ S ",)e...ll

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away with crimes they commit. So when you ask yourself again, can we truly hold these boys to the same standards that we hold other to? Based on previous cases relevant to this the answer would be no. After reviewing this from this perspective one can begin to see that the events that the boys partake in may not be so farfetched ideas after all.

Again I believe that the author used the events that form the characters to bring to life to real-life occurrence around us. Maybe after reading this one would be better able to understand the circumstances that the boys live in and be able to determine if the standards

that they are held to should be the same as everybody else, and see the effectiveness of the authors approach.